


What They Both Wanted

by everystareverywhere



Series: Alternative Universe Prompts [8]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, alternative universe, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3587550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everystareverywhere/pseuds/everystareverywhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone (I’m sorry, I don’t know who it was) wrote a post that said, “Ooo, I have a plot idea where the Doctor is the Tyler family’s butler and Rose has had a crush on him since he started working for her family when she was a teenager. At the age of 19 she finally confessed how she felt about him, but he rejected her. She then leaves for a school out of country for a few years before finally returning to find out that her parents are trying to find her a husband and that the Doctor is engaged.” And in about 30 minutes, I whipped this up. I hope this is what that person had in mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What They Both Wanted

When Rose Tyler was eleven years old, her father hired a new butler. The previous one was mean and nasty and always smelt like burnt toast. But the new one was young, funny, and always smelt like cinnamon and apples.

It wasn’t long before Rose developed a crush on him. She hadn’t meant to, but she was young and naïve and John Noble was just plain  _nice_ to her. He spoke to her, not at her, unlike many of the other people who worked in the house. He laughed at her jokes—which, being twelve, meant they probably weren’t even that good—and always made sure her favorite snack was on hand. And when Rose tried her hand on cooking for a family gathering, it was John who told her how wonderful tasted—until she burnt pretty much everything to a crisp.

John was also the one who called for takeout.

Just after she turned eighteen, Rose was looking at colleges and wondering about the pros and cons of going to school in France. Or maybe America. Or Canada, even, she’s heard good things about Canada. And John was there with her, going over the list and weighing each one as seriously as Rose was. When she got her acceptance letter from Brown University, it was John she ran to first, not her mother nor her father.

So when her parents through her a Congratulation and Going Away party, she insisted that John be invited not as a servant, but as a guest.  John was touched, of course, but insisted that serving as a butler was fine and honestly he could still enjoy it, even if he had to work it. Rose never noticed the look on her father’s face, but John did. He stood up straighter and with a tight smile told Rose it was fine, honestly.  

But the reason why Rose wanted him there as a guest was because she wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him how she felt. She was leaving; going away to college. Why shouldn’t she tell John that she had fallen in love with him a long time ago?

She had to muster up all of her courage and convince John to leave the party, just for a few minutes. It didn’t need as much convincing as she would have thought and she smiled as she pulled him along. They found an empty room and Rose pulled him in. Before he could say a word, Rose grabbed him by his lapels and pulled him down towards her.

Rose knew—she would swear on her life—that he, just for a moment, relaxed into the kissed. She  _knew_  that he did. But before she could go much further, he pushed her away, told her he couldn’t. No. Not going to happen. Rose was embarrassed, of course she was. Up until that moment, she was positive that John returned her feelings, even if it wasn’t as strong. But he shook his head, told her she misread his actions. He was her friend, but nothing more.

Rose called him out on it. Told him she knew that he felt something for her. John was starting to get angry, his voice raising. What Rose pictured blissfully in her mind all night popped like a squeezed balloon. He liked her, of course he did, but as a friend, nothing more. Rose left the room, feeling humiliated and unwanted.

She left two days later, barely seeing John, much to her relief and disappointment. He didn’t even wish her farewell, and though she somewhat expected that, she was still hurt.

It wasn’t until five years later that she returned home for longer than a week. She was a completely different woman, holding herself much straighter, her experiences in America (both good and bad) showing on her clothes and personality. She was stronger, smarter, more clever. But she came home because her parents felt it was finally time for her marry, and she wanted to tell them to back off. She had her eye on an American, and he would be a perfect match for her. Her parents refused to listen. Rose knew that the only person who could help her was someone she hadn’t spoken to in such a long time.

She wondered if he would even recognize her.

She was home three days, and she had neither seen nor heard anything from John. It was driving her silently mad, and if it wasn’t for the fact that people had seen him walking around the estate, she would have sworn that she made him up all those years ago. One her forth day home, during lunch, her mother had said something about John Noble. Rose didn’t hear it at first, just looking disinterested at her lunch. But when she heard his name, she sat up and asked her mother to repeat the story. Apparently John was engaged to a local school teacher, someone who was highly respected in her field.

Wonderful. Rose was happy for him. Honestly, she was. She was glad that he found someone. And when her mother insisted that they go to his engagement party, Rose tried to come up with every excuse she could think of. She insisted her mother and father go, pass along her love, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Rose and John were such good friends, her mother pointed out, as though Rose needed reminding. She should go, just to be friendly.

The party was huge and Rose distantly remembered a conversation she had with John so very long ago, where he stated that he hated big parties. It felt impersonal. Social gathering should be intimate. The host should be able to have a conversation with each guest. That’s how Rose felt when she walked in behind her parents. The ballroom was filled with people and Rose didn’t know more than half.

But she only had eyes for one person, and when she saw him, she froze. Time was good to him. He wasn’t as lanky as she remembered, but more built. His hair, which once flopped over to the one side, now stood up straight with whatever gel or moose he was using. He wasn’t wearing his usual black suit, but instead a brown pinstripe that shouldn’t have looked good, but did. And he was wearing the tie Rose bought for him for his birthday when she was sixteen. It had little blue roses on it, and she joked that whenever he wore it, he would have to think of her.

She wondered if she ever crossed his mind now.

Rose’s parents went up to the couple, and Rose didn’t even see the woman standing next to John. She was pretty, with her brown hair in a knot at the back of her head and her dress simply, yet tasteful.

Rose wanted to run the opposite way, but when he called out her name, she knew that she couldn’t leave. Not now. Turning around, Rose smiled and walked over to a stunned John, who for once in his life was actually speechless. Rose’s parents exchanged a glance, but Rose barely saw it, focused on the man in front of her. He stuttered, asking how she was doing and what was going on in her life. The more they spoke, the more confident he became, as did she. However, that was until his fiancé wrapped her hand around his arm and pulled him away with a small smile toward Rose.

It was days later that they met up again. She was out shopping and he was on a lunch break. He asked if maybe she wanted to have lunch with him, catch up. She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him to go to Hell, that he embarrassed her enough as it is. But she couldn’t. Because it was John and she couldn’t say no to him.

Lunch started off a bit uncomfortable, but then somewhere between their drinks arriving and the bread basket being put down, they fell back into their easy conversation style and it was like nothing ever changed.

She wanted to bring up what happened, but decided against it. It was in the past and he had obviously moved on and she should be happy for him. She tried, but she knew that when she told him how happy she was, she knew that her smile was too tight to be genuine.

They made plans to meet up again the next day, and then the day after that, and then the day after that, before suddenly every day she knew that she was going to meet John for lunch. The waitress smiled every time they walked in together and sat down at the same table. They barely had to look at a menu anymore; they had it more or less memorized.

It wasn’t until a month into their routine that it suddenly came to a screeching halt. The meal started innocently enough. Rose was telling John about a class she took in Brown and how their literature spoke to her, when the waitress commented that they were a lovely couple and asked how long had they been dating. They both rushed to assure her that they were friends, not dating, he was engaged to someone else. The waitress looked a bit shock, and apologized before moving on.

After that the conversation got a bit stiff and they didn’t have that free flow they had just moments earlier.

They didn’t meet up the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that.

John told her it was because he was involved in the wedding planning, but a part of Rose didn’t believe him. She never called him, nor did he call her. She never admitted that sometimes she would look at a photo of the two of them, back to when things were much simpler, and almost cry because she missed her best friend more than anything else.

And on top of everything else, her parents were still insisting on an arranged marriage. Rose refused, but her parents claimed that if she didn’t do it, they would disown her. Unless she found someone else to marry.

Rose wanted to tell John about her problem, but she didn’t know what exactly he would do to help her. So she fought with her parents and went on horrible dates and clutched that photo of her and John so close to her chest, it was getting all wrinkled.

After six months of being home (and four months after her disastrous lunch with John), Rose found out that John’s wedding was cancelled and heard no other news than that. Her mother—the queen of gossip—didn’t know what happened either. Both the ex-bride and groom were keeping their mouths shut. Rose sent a quick text to John, telling him she was sad to hear about it, but got no response in return.

Rose tried to find out what happened, but she couldn’t get much details. From different sources, she got that it basically came down to a disagreement that neither John nor his fiancé could agree on. Rose briefly wondered if it was about her, but she quickly pushed that thought to the side. It was childish and foolish.

That didn’t stop it from popping into her head every now and again. 

A month after his supposed wedding, John showed up at the front door of her parent’s house and asked to see Rose’s father. They were in her father’s office for a very long time. Rose paced in front of the doors before sitting down beside them. She must have dosed off because when the door opened, she jumped in fright. John looked down at her—the first time that they had seen each other in months—and gave her a small grin before leaving. Rose ran into her father’s office, but he was unnaturally tight lipped about the whole thing. Rose was ready to scream.

A week later, she was at a restaurant when John came up to her table and asked if he could sit. It just so happened that Rose was not meeting anyone and gestured to the chair across from her. The moment he sat down, he told Rose that he and his ex-fiancé got into horrible fighting matches, that they disagreed on just about everything. The final straw was when he found out she was cheating on him. She swore that she wasn’t, but John knew for certain that she was. The problem was was when he found out, he wasn’t angry. He was relieved.

He spoke about how he knew why he was so relieved, that that meant he didn’t have to marry his fiancé and he had a good excuse to back out. She refused, of course, but he kept pushing. Finally, she relented.

Rose wondered why he was telling her this. They hadn’t been talking in months, and suddenly he couldn’t shut up. Then he started talking about what had happened five years previously and Rose blushed and insisted that he didn’t need to bring it up.

But he pushed. And he told her that he felt exactly the same way she did, but that her father disapproved. He didn’t like how John would look at Rose, or the fact that a man in his mid-twenties was falling in love with a teenager. John felt that at the time, he couldn’t argue, so he tried to back away, but he couldn’t. He was falling more and more for Rose and it was driving him insane. And when she kissed him it was the best moment of his life. And that he cursed himself every day for pushing her away, though he knew it was something he had to do.

Rose was stunned, sure that she was dreaming this whole thing and she was going to wake up in her bed, the picture of her and John clutched in her hand. But when he reached out and grabbed her hand, Rose sobbed with relief. She had never stopped loving him, and when her parents told her she had to get married, she knew that she would never be happy unless it was with him.

John too started tearing up and he clutched her hand and he whispered that he wanted her, probably as badly as she wanted him. He had for so long. Rose wiped his tears away and insisted that they were both finally going to be together, the way they both wanted.  


End file.
